He laughed again. "Tired? After a couple of hours? Now, if it had been a couple of days, as we are accustomed to on the other side---- But go on talking, just to let me keep on hearing your voice. It's yours--I could have recognised it over a long-distance telephone--and it's English. You've no idea how delicious it is. And the smell of the room"--he drew in a deep breath--"is you and the English country. I tell you, it's good to be back!" She flushed, his pleasure was so sincere, and she smiled. "But why should we stand? Let me take your hat and stick." "Why shouldn't we sit in the garden--after my hot and tiring journey?" They both laughed. "Is the old wistaria still there, at the end of the terrace?" She turned her face away. "Yes, still there. Do you remember it?" she asked in a low voice. "Do you think I could forget it? I remember every turn of the house." "Let us go outside, then." She led the way, and he followed, to the trellis arbour, a few steps from the drawing-room door. The long lilac blooms had gone with the spring, but the luxuriant summer leafage cast a grateful shade. Roger Orme sat in a wicker chair and fanned himself with his straw hat. "Delightful!" he said. "And I smell stocks! It does carry me back. I wonder if I have been away at all." "I'm afraid you have," said Winifred--"for twenty years." "Well, I'm not going away again. I've had my share of work. And what's the good of work just to make money? I've made enough. I sold out before I left." "But in your letters you always said you liked America." "So I did. It's the only country in the world for the young and eager. If I had been born there, I should have no use for Dunsfield. But a man born and bred among old, sleepy things has the nostalgia of old, sleepy things in his blood. Now tell me about the sleepy old things. I want to hear." "I think I have written to you about everything that ever happened in Dunsfield," she said. But still there were gaps to be bridged in the tale of births and marriages and deaths, the main chronicles of the neighbourhood. He had a surprising memory, and plucked obscure creatures from the past whom even Winifred had forgotten. "It's almost miraculous how you remember." "It's a faculty I've had to cultivate," said he. They talked about his immediate plans. He was going to put The Lodge into thorough repair, bring everything up-to-date, lay in electric light and a central heating installation, fix bathrooms wherever bathrooms would go, and find a place somewhere for a billiard-room. His surveyor had already made his report, and was to meet him at the house the following morning. As for decorations, curtaining, carpeting, and such-like æsthetic aspects, he was counting on Winifred's assistance. He thought that blues and browns would harmonise with the oak-panelling in the dining-room. Until the house was ready, his headquarters would be "The Red Lion."